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Toad in the Hole

A baked dish of beaten egg whites with whole yolks, seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Toad in the Hole

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the whites

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Pour boiling water over the egg whites to cook them, then turn off the heat.

  3. Shape the cooked egg whites on a platter.

Add the yolks and bake

  1. Make holes in the egg whites and place a whole yolk in each hole.

  2. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the yolks and add a little butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set but not browned.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam, they hold their shape and set into the light base of the dish.
Egg yolks
Set in the hollows as a rich, creamy centre that contrasts with the whites.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the yolks and gives a mild, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until set but not browned. Egg proteins firm as they heat, so the whites and yolks set in the oven. Leaving them in too long over-firms the proteins, which makes the texture dry and rubbery and can brown the surface too much.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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